A practical guide to setting up categories and tags on your blog or website
For every content project I’ve been involved with, categories and tags have had a role to play. Sometimes, there are clearly defined systems, which make a positive contribution to the user experience. However, it must be said that very often something goes awry. There is no set plan, and users find themselves confused by numerous and options. Over a period of years, this can lead to a sort of digital rabbit warren that can be expensive to sort out. Thus it’s important to have a defined approach to categories and tags to order your content.
Categories and Tags – What’s the Difference?
Any users of Wordpress will be familiar with categories and tags, but a number of sites I’ve worked with have struggled to differentiate between the two. Typically I define the two as follows:
Categories – grouping of content…
4 steps and 4 data sources to help define the business case for SEO
Search engine optimisation is one of many digital marketing tactics a business can choose to focus on. Email, pay per click, display and affiliate marketing are all in many companies' marketing armouries, and while the cost per visitor for natural search is zero, in order to achieve organic success within the SERPs significant investment is required. This post looks at one aspect of making the case based on my recent experiences.
‘Black hat’ SEO tactics such as buying links, keyword stuffing and cloaking used to work for those looking to get visibility within the search results, but now a more considered approach to on-page optimisation, content marketing and link earning is required to rank highly for popular search terms. Therefore, in order to get investment and buy-in for SEO it’s not surprising that business managers require a compelling…
An introduction to creating campaigns with Vine
By now you might well have heard of Vine, the latest feature available on Twitter that lets you capture just 6 seconds of footage. There in lies the creative element to Vine… how do you make 6 seconds of engaging and exciting video?
Vine is a great marketing tool for getting your message out there in an interesting and attention grabbing way. The main advantage of Vine is that this can be achieved relatively quickly. However, the temptation can then be to make something fast, without a well thought out plan of action. Any marketing output, no matter how light-hearted or small, has a direct reflection on yourself /company, so it pays to have a clear and concise message.
You can download Vine for free.
Getting started with Vine
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How to improve your Site Speed in five simple steps
We live in the age of now where everyone wants everything instantly, especially when browsing by desktop or mobile. If your website is subjecting users to never-ending visions of hour-glasses or self-chasing blue spheres then your conversions are going to suffer along with your search engine results.
Site speed is one of the metrics Google uses to rank websites, stating in its Webmaster Central Blog:
“Our users place a lot of value in speed, that's why we've decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”
As well as being included in its metrics Google also outlines the importance of speed in its 10-rule ethos:
“We know that your time is valuable, so when you’re seeking an answer on the web, you want it right away and we aim to…
4 Cool examples of Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns
Guerrilla Marketing is a well-established advertising technique. If you have not heard of the approach, it involves an unconventional campaign often in an unexpected place. I will look at four examples of these type of campaigns in this post.
The concept is growing in popularity and now more and more firms are including innovative guerrilla marketing campaigns (GMC) into their strategies. Approaches include flash mobs, graffiti or sticker bombing, but the approach can be a lot more involved and creative. The most creative will get featured in offline news and may then be featured in later waves of the campaign on TV or in Print.
All around the world there has been some crazy examples, both in print and video. Here we take a look at 4 examples that created an impact.
1. Ikea's Longest Outdoor…
An interview with ex-Googler Andre Weyher
You may have noticed we enjoy reviewing tools that help marketers manage their online marketing. In most cases, particularly for search marketing, new tools are variants on existing tools for keyword or backlink analysis. So, I was interested to hear more about Netcomber since it offers a different type of service, still closely related to search, but also with potential for applying more generally for reputation management and affiliate marketing. Here I talk to Andre Weyher about how the Netcomber service has evolved and how it can be used by brands.
Q. What was your inspiration for developing Netcomber?
NetComber is the result of my personal wish of making the Internet a more transparent place. After working in Google for close to 5 years, the bulk of that period in the Search Quality team, I learned a lot about the workings of search engines.
When I moved to…
Agencies give their views on how companies can get social engagement in six seconds
Last month Twitter announced its entrance into the video sharing arena, with the introduction of Vine, a mobile app that allows users to capture and share short six-second looping videos. In this post, I'll look at how marketers view the potential of Vine and advise on how it should be integrated into campaigns.
Currently only available on iOS, but with plans to bring it to other platforms in the future, iPhone and iPod touch users can download the free Vine app from the app store, recording videos and sharing them on the Vine network itself and Twitter.
Already dubbed the ‘Instagram for video’, initial response to the innovation has been generally positive – though with a few caveats.
“I think Vine is a perfect fit…
A briefing on Facebook Page Post Targeting Enhanced advertising feature
Facebook Newsfeed HyperTargeting is a relatively new Facebook feature (officially referred to as “Page Post Targeting Enhanced”) that enables pages to deliver more relevant messaging to their Facebook fans.
In short, Facebook Newsfeed HyperTargeting increases the targeting accuracy of posts by increasing the types of posts segments a community manager can target. Previously, pages could only deliver “one-size-fits-all” posts, or segment posts against locations or languages.
The more robust segmentation criteria allows pages to segment their posts to their audience’s newsfeed using additional criteria, including:
Age
Education
Gender
Workplace
Interests
Language and Location
Relationship Status
Marketing Implications
The low barrier to development and deployment of segmented messaging using this tool allows for micro-segmented, personalized message deployment at scale. This has the potential to dramatically increase your Page engagement rate. As such, Facebook Newsfeed HyperTargeting lends itself naturally to integration within your Social…
A briefing on the Facebook Exchange (FBX)
Most social media marketers largely relied on the Facebook MarketPlace Ads to reach out to the billions of Facebook users each month. Although they were relatively effective in marketing, Facebook saw the need of introducing a better and more reliable social advertising option - The Facebook Exchange, otherwise popularly referred to as FBX.
FBX is a system where Facebook sells high quality inventory ads through an auction to many marketing bidders (Real Time Bidding). It significantly helps marketers reach out to the valuable consumers on Facebook.
FBX enables advertisers to serve tracking cookies on users' browsers as they visit advertiser or publisher sites and then retarget those users with relevant ads once they enter Facebook, often for remarketing, i.e. to remind them about a retailer site they have visited for example.
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10 tips for improving visibility for a new blog
If you already have a blog and have made it the hub of your content sharing online, then what's next? I would like to share my top 10 tips that you can apply at any time to improve your blog’s visibility even if you have relatively limited resources for blogging.
The tips are mainly intended for those new to blogging, but I hope seasoned bloggers may get some ideas or reminders from it. We are all looking for ways to improve visits to our blogs without doing extra writing!
Top 10 tips for improving your blog visibility
1. Optimize your blog for SEO
Improve your keyword research. It will help to determine what keywords need to be included in your posts. Tools such as Wordtracker, SEMRush, and Google AdWords Keyword Tool will help you choose keywords…
